Mar 7, 2012

League Post - Whoa!

What media announcement had you throwing fist pumps and doing roundhouse kicks in the air? Did the final result live up to your dreams?

Well of course, being the nerdy geek I am, there are a handful of possible answers to this: the Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions in theaters, NEW Star Wars movies, a new Indiana Jones movie, a new TRON movie, the upcoming TRON animated series...

But there is one specific moment that really blew me away in my seat. It happened at Star Wars Celebration 5 in 2010. I think it was Saturday morning when Lucas himself was appearing at the con and being interviewed by Jon Stewart. The con organizers were smart. Knowing fans would line up hours in advance to behold The Bearded One, they broadcast the panel over closed circuit to various halls in the convention center. While you may not be able to see George "in person", you could still watch it live.

We walked into one of the broadcast halls a few minutes after the panel had started. A bit later, when the panel was getting close to wrapping up, Lucas unveiled one of the deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi that would be appearing on the Blu-Ray set.

Now, this may not seem such a huge deal compared to a new movie release. As I said in my first League post, I've seen the original Star Wars films over 100 times, each. So it was almost inconceivable in my mind to be watching new footage that the general public had never seen previously. A couple of deleted scenes from A New Hope (or as I call it, Star Wars) made it on to a CD-ROM in the 90s but this...this was a scene most of us had no idea even existed!

The first thing I did after getting those Blu-Rays was go through all the deleted scenes from the original movies. It was amazing to see all new things from movies I have known front to back for over 30 years.